


The Storm

by experimentorium



Series: pearlina week 2k20! [4]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Broken Bones, F/F, MMM LOVE ME SOME PEARLINA AUS IN THE MORNING, airship au, also human au, also i never say this (whoops) but rated t for cursing (pearl), dw though she'll be fine....probably, hmmm what shall i call this au..., how about.., me rubbing my little baby hands together (evil giggle), the love boooat (in the air)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24879988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/experimentorium/pseuds/experimentorium
Summary: She hears Pearl exhale. “Wherever you go, I go too, Marina. You know that. I knew who you were when I first saw you, and that didn’t stop me then, so why should this stop me now?”(for prompt 4: AU)
Relationships: Marina/Pearl (Splatoon)
Series: pearlina week 2k20! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1791904
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	The Storm

In retrospect, Pearl _did_ tell her not to take the earliest maintenance shift. She did, but it was murmured between lazy kisses in bed, after stumbling back to their room, full on the dinner they shared with Callie and Marie just before. Pearl _could_ have warned her while they were huddling close to keep warm, making their way across the scant, vulnerable bridge from the employee’s mess hall to their room on the airship, but she was too busy trying not to let go of Marina and put her life at the disposal of the open sky. It was technically early for them to sleep, but Marina’s wake up was scheduled for earlier that usual the next morning, and after a long day of work Pearl wasn’t going to deny either of them an early turn-in, anyways. The hum of the ship’s propellers whipped, muted outside their door.

The only light beside their bed is the tiny lamp on Marina’s bedside, emitting a muted bronze glow that flickers like candlelight in the light jostling of the ship’s flight. Pearl was close enough to falling asleep, and Marina had busied herself with combing her fingers through her silky hair, pulling the stray locks from her face, until a lethargic Pearl grew impatient and dragged Marina down by the collar of her sleeping gown so their lips could meet. 

It was then Pearl had decided to let her in on the dangerous implications of working the early shift, as explained from her own experience watching her father oversee the heavy damages done as a result of someone inexperienced (and in over their head) taking on the task. But, in Marina’s defense, she had been preoccupied with all the spots along Pearl’s face left unkissed, and had, in the process, cut off Pearl’s sole warning as her lips reached a sensitive spot just below her jaw.

It’s this memory that gives her the power to wake up so early, but the sky on the brink of sunrise serves as a fringe benefit. She leaves Pearl with a kiss on the cheek and a lingering touch on her bare shoulder before she slips out, trying to make sure the hinges of their thick metal door squeak as little as possible. 

The air is oddly still for such an early hour so high in the atmosphere, but clouds are sparse and the sky is a dome of stars melting away to the first bursting rays of sunlight. On the surface of the Earth, thousands of feet below, it must be one of those not-too-muggy summer days, crisp and warm with a breeze to cut through the high temperatures. If there’s one thing among many Marina loves about living so high in the air, it’s avoiding the mugginess. Even though she loves summertime, the thick humidity can be the stuff of nightmares.

She secures her harness as she climbs the ladder rungs up the side of the ship, gripping gloves on so the slickness of sweat won’t bring her to an early demise. Maintenance checks require looking for weak spots, possible places where small punctures could appear and cause disaster for the whole crew. She makes it to the crow’s nest with a shaking exhale, nerves alight even though it’s hardly her first time climbing the side of the ship. Usually, though, it isn’t done completely alone. She relaxes back onto the metal rail, fingering along the device attached to her suspender strap. When Pearl wakes up, she will grab her own communicator and talk to Marina, like she had promised the night before. She has such an adorable sleepy voice, whispery and tired and it always makes something twist in Marina’s chest to see her blink awake after a long night’s sleep and slowly come to. 

She scans what exterior she can see of the ship, and follows the readings of some of the devices on the panel in front of her. Mainly a patrolling spot, with a slightly less comprehensive system than the cockpit, the first signals of danger appear on the crow’s nest system, so the watchman can send the message to the pilots without major distraction to their work. She watches the readings shift with the wind and the natural carry of the ship, but nothing out of the ordinary appears. Instead, she turns her attention to the sky. Soft, whispering pinks push away the navy blue patchwork of starlight and space dust to make way for the golden sun. The lack of clouds makes the world seem quieter. Marina shivers under her jacket. 

As soon as Marina realizes the serenity of the moment, the universe decides to break it open, to snap it to pieces and watch Marina flail. At first, it’s a simple warning, a repeated beep from one of the monitors signaling a problem. A weaker area of the ship needs to be inspected and most likely patched. This is nothing new, an issue that has to be dealt with quickly but has been done many a time before—usually carried out under Marina’s careful hand, anyways. She exhales a puff of air, offers one last wistful gaze to the sunrise, and maneuvers carefully out of the crow’s nest, harness firmly attached to her at the belt. Making her way down the metal rungs of the ladder, the wind picks up, and Marina looks to the side, hugging close to the ship’s exterior. The lack of clouds to the east is made up for, apparently, by the huge, lumbering monsters hanging ferociously in the sky to the west. Thunderheads, no doubt. To cause trouble, to cause discord. Marina gauges her options; she has time to make a patch before they hit the storm, she just can’t waste time over little things, she has to work quickly. She has a patch kit attached to her belt, and the spot isn’t too far away from the next rung of the ladder. 

She loops her arm through the rung and gets to work. Far away, thunder rumbles. The wind picks up, whipping in a sort of frenzy Marina doesn’t think she’s ever felt before. It rips at her jacket, makes her pants cling to her legs and boasts almost enough force to push her back, but she holds fast onto the ladder, stitching the last bits of the patch onto the ship with practiced ease. The wind whistles against her ears, forcing her hat flying off her head; Marina nearly lets go of her firm grip on the ladder, but she isn’t foolish enough to actually reach after it. Hats are replaceable, and she is not. She presses close to the ship, continuing down unsurely, at a snail’s pace, so the wind can’t whisk her away. 

The crackle of lightning follows the distant thunder, and Marina’s heart speeds up as she realizes just how quickly they’re being sucked into the storm; she’s no longer in the crow’s nest, and she has no way to contact the pilots. Climbing back up is too dangerous an option, with lightning now a part of the equation. 

Marina had spent her whole childhood escaping thunder; though it seemed counterproductive to do so working on an airship, she seemed to always find herself living back among the clouds. Pearl is the one who brought her back into the skies, who coaxed her out of shadows and reminded her why the vast expanse above the earth gave her that heady rush of freedom, the closest thing to a real home, real comfort. Alone, she might never have been able to go back. But Pearl had wormed her way into Marina’s life and brazenly offered her hand when nobody else would look at her. 

_Pearl_ , Marina thinks, pressed precariously to the side of the trembling airship. She squeezes her eyes shut, and steps down another rung. _If this storm is going to hit, it might as well hit the both of us, together_ ; the thought sets itself to stone in her mind, hardens her resolve and gives her nerves the slap across the face that was coming for them. 

But she hasn’t accounted for just what trouble the storm’s brewer has in mind. Just as she picks up her foot to lower to the next rung, the wind snaps violently, pulling her back from the ladder until only the grip on her gloves holds her to the freezing metal rung. She scrambles for purchase as the wind grabs at her, goading her to slip and let go, to make a mistake, and fall. She grunts, still stony with determination. With a particularly nasty timpani crash of thunder, the wind tugs hard; her hand slips and her forehead smacks into the rung she was grabbing for. She feels like she’s vibrating out of her body, nervous system stalling. There’s the sensation like she’s suspended in midair, the whistling in her ears makes her head spin and her fading vision spiral endlessly; the last thing she feels before blacking out is a sharp, brutal impact cutting through her midsection. 

Everything is still. There is no sound in Marina’s ears, and no strength in her limbs where they hang limply in the air. There’s a constant pressure on her upper stomach that causes a sharp, stinging pain every time she tries to breathe. When her eyes flutter open, her vision is spinning, and spinning, fluffy clouds below her framing dizzy patchworks of civilization on the surface of the Earth.

She’s still in the sky. Thankfully, her harness is made of material too strong to snap, and as such, it holds fast against her, keeping her connected to the ship above. The sun is fully out, which means the storm is far behind them. There’s no more whipping wind, no more thunder or lightning. In fact, the sky is almost perfectly clear of danger. Just as the forecasters on the pilots’ radio had told them the night before. Marina is chilled to the bone, and she can’t move without the sensation of a thousand red hot needles stinging through her chest. Her ribs must have broken on impact when the harness stopped her, she realizes hazily. Moving seems hopeless, and no position is comfortable. She knows the only reason she isn’t dead is the same reason such an unexpected storm had tried to rip her from the side of an airship. Anger mixes with the hopelessness, something so acute that she begins to understand Pearl’s knack for breaking things when she gets upset. But she _can’t_ , she can’t move, can’t scream or kick, so tears fill her eyes instead. The lack of sufficient air up so high means she’ll probably pass out again soon. How long will she hang there before someone onboard notices she’s gone? Where was Pearl? She hopes to all the high gods that the storm hadn’t taken Pearl. But what could she have done then? She left that life behind. They only want her power, her influence—but that’s the only thing Marina isn’t willing to give them. She hangs useless in the open air. 

She breathes shakily, watching endless quilts of farmland pass by on the ground below. Her eyelids grow heavier, head still spinning as black edges at the corners of her vision once more…

“ _-R-Mr… Ee, eh-m_ ,” sound crackles to life, and Marina would have let herself pass out again if she hadn’t sluggishly realized it was coming from the communicator still attached to her suspender strap. Her arm, leaden, a thousand pounds hanging below her, lifts slowly, her other arm coming to support it so she can reach the device and grip it.

“ _M…_ ” the sound crackles out again, and the thing goes silent. Marina could have sworn… 

And just like that, it bursts to life again. “ _Marina!_ ” The shriek causes a heavy, dragging ache to ripple behind her skull, and she winces. She presses the button on her device.

“Pearl?” She manages to cough out, hearing a hysterical sigh on the other end. 

“ _Where the hell are you?! That storm—you aren’t—_ ” Her voice is full of distress, Marina can hear people running around and yelling orders underneath the sound. “ _I didn’t even think, I, I, I didn’t even fucking notice you had been gone, I thought you were in the cockpit, Marina—where are you?_ ” The pleading fear in Pearl’s voice renews the tears in her eyes. 

“I need, _help_ ,” Marina forces the words out through the stabbing pain. “Call someone, I, my harness-s, it,” she winces, “It’s still attached.” 

“ _Oh my gods_ ,” it sounds like she’s running. “ _Marina please, please, please promise me you’ll stay awake for me, stay awake, I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be right here with you, I’m getting someone now, I’m getting, I, please! I’ll start yelling at you if you even dare pass out, baby, do you hear me?_ ” 

“S’impossible, not to… sometimes,” Marina manages a weak smile. 

“ _Don’t you be fucking smart with me, right now,_ ” she hears Pearl sniff, her voice wobbles. Marina hears her yelling, presumably for help, rushing hurried explanations full of upset _I don’t know_ s and _please I need her to stay alive_ s. Marina squints her eyes, feeling like she’s spinning out of control again. Can’t she just go back to last night, in bed with Pearl? She could’ve slept late and forgotten to go out, and the next person along could have caught the patch that needed fixing. Would the storm still have come? 

“ _Okay_ ,” Pearl’s voice returns on her shoulder. “ _Marina, I—I need you to try and climb up, they, they say they’re gonna pull you but it needs to work both ways or you could get more hurt—can, can you do that for me?_ ” 

“I... “ Marina wants to sob. She’s sure Pearl’s already started. “...I can try.” 

“ _Okay, okay,_ ” she hears Pearl exhale. “ _I’m here, Marina, I’m right here with you._ ”

Marina squeezes her eyes shut, lifting her arm behind her and reaching for the harness’s string-wire, to grab onto and pull herself upright. The ninety-degree turn would have been easy if it weren’t for her ribs, and when she tries to pull herself up the roiling waves of sheer pain that rip across her chest are so strong her vision tunnels and her stomach twists sharply. She heals faster than most people, her bones knit together quicker and stronger, but an injury this deep will take days to get over, not mere hours. 

“ _Pearl_ ,” she bites out forlornly, digging her teeth into her bottom lip.

“ _I know, I know it hurts, but I know you can do it, Marina, you’re strong and I know you can; I love you, Marina, and you are_ not _going to die down there._ ” 

Marina lets her head dip again. She forces a new burst of strength, summoned from the image of Pearl up there, leaning over the metal railing to try and find her, frantic and upset. Waiting for her. She hisses an exhale, biting back tears as she hoists herself up stiffly as possible. She holds onto the string-wire with both hands. “I love you, too,” she exhales, head spinning. “I’m up, I’m, I’m coming…” 

“ _Keep going, Marina, you’re doing so good, you’re almost there, everything’s gonna be okay,_ ” Marina doesn’t know if Pearl keeps repeating this as a way to reassure Marina or to reassure herself. She breathes as shallowly as possible to avoid angering her ribs too much as she inches up the string-wire, grip gloves doing as their name suggests along the normally-frictionless surface. Soon enough there’s a tug on the wire, and another, until the bottom of the airship comes back into her field of vision, growing larger second by second. Pearl’s voice becomes less frantic in her ear by the moment; Marina even thinks she can see Pearl's shock of cornsilk-white hair catching the sunlight over the main deck’s railing. 

When she makes it to the gate where she set her harness secure hours ago, crew members, including Callie and Marie, are in a line holding the thick wire of her harness, heaving her up. Marina is simultaneously sweating and shivering when there’s a final jolt and her body hits solid ground again. No sooner is she able to prop herself up when a blanket is thrown over her shoulders, and a pair of arms thrown around her neck. 

“Holy shit,” Pearl half-sobs into her ear. “ _Holy_ _shit_ , Marina, I’ll _kill_ you for that.” 

“ _Ow_ ,” Marina whimpers, and Pearl immediately pulls back, loosening the pressure against her. 

“Medic, _someone get a medic_!” Pearl shouts, and a few of the crew members run off from the group gathering up the last of Marina’s harness. Marie is the one to unclip it from Marina’s belt. 

“How are you doing? Alright? Alive?” Marie keeps her voice low, so as not to set Pearl off.

Marina nods. “I, yeah... I’ve… been better...” 

Marie snorts. “Good to know. Rest up, and let me know if the harpy loses her shit at anyone; Cal and I can diffuse.” 

“Thanks,” Marina exhales, and Marie nods once, heading off. 

“And _you_ ,” Pearl returns her attention to Marina. She wipes at her eyes with her fist and scowls down at Marina. “Don’t you _ever_ fucking scare me like that, you hear me? Not ever, again. _Forever_.” The back of her hand ghosts along Marina’s cheek, and Marina’s eyes flutter shut, her exhaustion-racked body just barely holding off from sleep. 

“I can’t, make any...promises,” her voice barely holds onto sound. 

“Don’t you smile at me, all shit-eating,” Pearl’s lip trembles. “I hate you. This is me hating your guts.” 

“I love you,” Marina murmurs, drifting off. “So much…” 

Marina wakes up slowly. There’s a stillness about her, but it’s peaceful. She’s surrounded by warmth. Breathing through her nose, her inhale stalls at an insistent, stinging pain in her chest. She can’t muster the effort to open her eyes just yet, but her ears open to the sound around her. For a moment, she almost thinks she’s back at the Houzuki country home, but the telltale whirring of propellers causes the memories to flood right back. She’s eternally glad for the blankets draped over her, then. 

“Hey,” there’s a gentle touch at her shoulder, a brush of lips against her cheek. She opens her eyes and she’s in her and Pearl’s shared bedroom, on her side of the bed; she meets Pearl’s tired gaze as she bites a yawn into her fist. “You slept a lot.” 

Marina hums, smiling involuntarily. Pearl’s voice makes it apparent that she had slept, too. Slow and tired. 

“They brought food for you,” Pearl yawns again, tucking herself along Marina’s side as gently as possible, trying not to jostle her too much. 

“M’not hungry,” Marina’s own voice rasps like sandpaper in her throat. All she really wants is to fall back to sleep, with Pearl tucked next to her like this. 

“You should eat something…” she feels Pearl smile against her shoulder. “I’cn pretend I’m nursing you back to health, and then once you’re fixed we can fall in love and run away together.”

“I already love you, though,” the words cause the same butterflies to flutter around in her stomach as the first time they kissed, some kind of inexplicable euphoria. 

“Then I guess it’s just roleplay,” Pearl snorts, sitting up. Marina can just barely see her; a cowlick flips up on the back of her head. She slides out of bed, walking around to Marina’s side and looking over the tray at her bedside table. She flips on the little table lamp. “A few sandwiches, some cold soup… tea bags…” They have a kettle in their room, like every other crew member. Pearl takes Marina’s hand as if it were second nature for their fingers to be intertwined, sifting through the rest of the light food on the tray. “Nothing too crazy. Anything you wanna blow through first?”

Marina stares at their hands, clasped above the sheets. 

“Come on, Reena…I’m gonna eat it all if you don’t want it…” Pearl leans into Marina’s line of vision. She clasps her other hand over Marina’s, completely encapsulating Marina’s hand in her soft palms. “What… what happened, out there?” She asks tentatively, as if she already knows the answer. 

Marina meets her gaze. 

“That storm, that wasn’t just a squall. It barely touched the ship, and it was gone quick as I first heard the thunder.” Her thumb runs over the inside of Marina’s wrist, where the skin is sensitive and her pulse thumps steadily along. “Was it…?”

“I don’t think,” Marina closes her eyes again. “He’ll ever be done with me, until I’m back under his command.” Pearl is quiet. “I… I hate this. I don’t want to put people in danger. I don’t want to hurt you like I did…” 

She hears Pearl exhale. “Wherever you go, I go too, Marina. You know that. I knew who you were when I first saw you, and that didn’t stop me then, so why should this stop me now?” 

Marina opens her eyes, head and heart aching. 

“I trust you, I trust the choices you make. ‘Cause hey, this?” She gestures between them. “This ain’t ending anytime soon, understand?” 

Marina manages a smile, and Pearl softens at the sight. “I should hope so…” she whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this was just one of those ideas i had floatin around in my head for awhile.. so I figured hey, why not?? 
> 
> I kinda went ape on this for whts sposed to be just a lil prompt response.... *glances nervously at word count* but it was fun to write! lol


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